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Star Wars Galaxies To Revamp Jedi System 75

Posted by simoniker from the everything's-different-now dept.
JasdonLe writes "In a move that significantly changes the game's goals, I just saw on the official Star Wars Galaxies site that plans are in the works to 'revamp' the entire Jedi system, including removing Jedi permadeath." The plan is to "rebuild the Jedi system to be quest-oriented; and to include the familiar elements of Force Sensitivity, Jedi-oriented quests, as well as many other elements the developers and the community feel should make up the process of becoming a Jedi." SWG Stratics also has word that the holocrons, previously needed to be come a Jedi in the PC MMORPG, "won't be in the new system", but may still have value as rare in-game items.
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Star Wars Galaxies To Revamp Jedi System More

Star Wars Galaxies To Revamp Jedi System

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  • Wow, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by King_of_Prussia ( 741355 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @01:29AM (#8079630)
    maybe now the path to becoming a Jedi will be based on skill, and not mastering random professions told to you by a magic cube...
    • I'm hoping so. I realize that not everyone can become a Jedi, but the amount of work (read: repetitive item-finding for months) that you need to put into it currently is nuts. Just another reason why I won't go near the game.

    • Re:Wow, (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jafuser ( 112236 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:30PM (#8082991)
      This is why I left SWG for Second Life. I left right about the time the Holocron concept became the obvious path to advance my character (who was a non-combat class).

      I was not about to go through all the trouble to retrain to become a combat character, fight through the hoards of people who are all camping the spawn sites where holocrons could be dropped, cursing and swearing at each other for "kill stealing" all the while getting killed over and over again by the mob that drops the holocrons just to get that one lucky drop that only serves to tell me I have to completely change professions and do it all over again.

      This is not the path of a Jedi.

      Well, maybe a Dark Jedi, but where was the path to becoming a good Jedi? It didn't make sense that I had to go from being a humble moisture farmer with dreams of faraway places to become the most aggressive selfish "l33t d3wd" ass-kicking psychotic fighter in the game in order to find the path to enlightenment...

      Anyway, now I'm pretty much settled on SL. I doubt I can go back to any other MMO game which doesn't offer me the ability to build and script everything I create in the world. No other MMO game out there can even compete with this level of freedom.

  • finally un-sucky? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @01:37AM (#8079660) Homepage Journal
    When various MMORPGs came out, I would complain about the initial outlay, considering you have to pay a monthly fee. I would usually get modded 'troll' or 'flamebait' or, at best, someone would argue that it was to pay for development. Now, how much development was actually done by Sony and LucasArts prior to release of the game? Since release, there's been several very large patches, major revamps to several professions, and now a total revamp of the Jedi system. So, again, why would I pay $50 up front?

    Hope this new system gives folks what they want.
    • The solution to getting rid of the box cost is to have game developers use game client & server middleware, some of which is built specifically for MMOGs, and is free... such as NeL by Nevrax (www.nevrax.org).

    • Re:finally un-sucky? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by alphaseven ( 540122 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @02:16AM (#8079792)
      Game companies charge $50 up front because people are willing to pay $50 up front.

      Now since a company can make potentially hundreds of dollars from each player in subscriptions fees, why not just sell game cheap, like with a month free at $15 dollars or so? In order to get the player hooked. I'm guessing this hasn't occurred since the competition hasn't gotten intense enough between MMORPGs.

      Maybe in the next couple years with the coming glut of these type of games, companies will take a risk and drop the initial fee to attract customers.

      • Re:finally un-sucky? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Rallion ( 711805 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:03AM (#8079992) Journal
        True, true. When it comes to software of any kind, the cost is 95% dependent on what people are willing to pay, and only 5% based on actual cost. I think this is mostly because marginal cost-per-unit is negligible.

        What do you think cost more to make, Photoshop CE or Warcraft III? And which one costs much, much, much more?
        • ...but with which one can you easily make back the money you spent on it? Hint - 'pro gaming' doesn't count.
          • Pro-gaming isn't real....I think it's all made up. Like the moon landing!

            Anyway, that's just WHY people are willing to pay more. They're still charging more, at less cost, because they can.

            When the supply curve is a nearly-straight line that's always gonna be WAY off the edge of the chart, it messes with the hole supply/demand model a bit, doesn't it?
        • Honestly? Knowing the general numbers, Warcraft III was much more expensive to make. Which one costs more? Photoshop is a no brainer there. Warcraft III outsells Photoshop by a huge margin, but the price of Photoshop makes up for it. Which one is more profitable? Hard to tell because there's more than just software. Blizzard also licenses out to other companies to make toys, cartoons, what have you. Which one makes the most money? Good question.

      • Re:finally un-sucky? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:36AM (#8080074) Homepage Journal
        You're absolutely right that the price is what the market will bear. Unfortunately, it takes a rather short term view of things. Players like myself won't pay ~$80 to see if I like the game ($50 box plus two months @ $15/month). It's just not worth it. OTOH, I WOULD pay $30 to see if I liked it. Then it becomes: is the game worth sticking around. If so, the marginal profit on the $50 box should be exceeded at some point in time (say, six months). So even though they have to wait, they'll get the money. Now, the real loss comes from raising the barrier to entry. Like you say, get 'em in cheap, get 'em hooked, and go to town cashing checks.

        Let's say 100,000 people are playing SWG. If it were only $15 for the first month instead of $65, might that number not be double that? At that price, who cares if the first month or two is alpha/beta quality?

        • No pride, No honor. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by CashCarSTAR ( 548853 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @02:14PM (#8082348)
          That's something, in my mind that is society wide. This is the sort of thing that sticks in my craw. These people, they have no pride in their work. They think they need to get the payment up front. That in a nutshell, they have to trick people into buying their chairs.

          This goes for business, politics, technology, entertainment. It's just a lot of deception. It's about fooling people into thinking you have a good product, not actually having one.
      • Actually, the $50 up-front charge is mostly a marketing deal. TKO Software just bought up a small start-up MMORPG from Asylumsoft, and there's been some discussion of selling the game commercially. The point is that a game on shelves at stores will be seen by many people who would never randomly happen accross a free download. As TKO's developers have said, oftentimes a distributor gets the vast majority of shelved-box sales, and the game itself only gets the subscription fee.

      • Re:finally un-sucky? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by neura ( 675378 )
        Companies can't afford to drop the initial price. A very large number of the people that bought this game when it was first released did not pay any monthly fees as they cancelled their account at the end of their free 30 days. This isn't the first time we've seen this either. AC2 and ShadowBane suffered much the same fate. HUGE showing the first month out, then the user base just dwindles down to almost non-existant. It's like letting people into an amusement park where all the rides are either broken
        • Unless of course your park doesn't actually suck, but I think it's a given here that this park sucks.... badly. :) Hence the reason they're still making major changes to the park, because people are unsatisfied. Which is actually another interesting point. What Sony says people want from the game (the changes they're making) and what people generally post on forums that they want from the game never seem to coincide.... It always makes me wonder who these people are that are asking for the changes they

    • Planes of Profit! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Umgawa71 ( 739459 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:35AM (#8080070) Homepage
      Since release, there's been several very large patches, major revamps to several professions, and now a total revamp of the Jedi system. So, again, why would I pay $50 up front?

      Let's not forget the fact that, despite these large patches, the addition of vehicles, not only are the players paying fifteen dollars a month to play, but inevitably there will be an expansion pack, which will be yet another twenty to thirty dollars; which doesn't include a free month of play (seeing how they've already hooked you). It's bad enough that the patches for some of these games are already enormous (Final Fantasy 11's install, anyone?) and are often adding significant amounts of content (vehicles in Galaxies), but often MMORPG expansion-packs come off as glorified patches. After all, in order to keep parity with the players who have bought the expansion, there is often a rather sizeable patch for the un-expanded players, just so they can see others using what they didn't buy. To me, that's considerably more insulting than the initial fifty-dollar payment for the game.
    • What gets me is they are spending all this time making and modifying new content, when there still exists the bug that makes all your money dissappear form your in game bank account! :(
      This is a realy basic, fundimental bug that has been present since very early on. Why oh why have they not fixed it yet? (because it is not easy to find some bugs. :P)
      I was stung by it just after christmas and all I got was a message saying my loss was not verifyable so I would not be reimbursed. :(
      And I pay 11 a month

    • Re:finally un-sucky? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by will_die ( 586523 )
      Theses changes are still SWG dev wet dreams. They are still working on adding stuff they said when they would add when the game was released.

  • In other words... (Score:3, Informative)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:03AM (#8079990)
    ... too many people complained about the amount of effort needed to becoming the demi-gods of the Star Wars universe.

    They're Jedis, people! Lightsaber welding, Force power using, elite people. I know everyone wants to be the ultra badass in any game, but it comes to a point where sometimes you just can't have it without some work. The developers are just doing this because players couldn't figure out the secret.

    • Re:In other words... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, it's SOOOOOO fun to master 10+ professions and camp MOBs for holocrons to unlock a Jedi slot... just to have permadeath. Oh yeah, the fun... it was so fun I forget why I cancelled my account.

      Oh wait...

      (In other words, too little, way too late for a lot of people. I predict a mass exodus when WoW beta starts.)

    • Re:In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:40AM (#8080079) Homepage Journal
      Those 'players' are 'customers'. Piss them off, and they'll go elsewhere. Heck, even just disappoint them, ignore them, or don't meet their expectations, and they'll go elsewhere. This isn't Sony's little sandbox (nor is it the private sandbox of the people who have the time to jump through the hoops to become a Jedi). If they want to make a profit, they have to 'deal' with players and their expectations.

      Real life is boring and tedious. Why should I pay $50 plus $15/month to play an imaginery boring and tedious person?

      Players *did* figure out the secret. And many people said 'WTF does *that* have to do with becoming a Jedi?' Heck, even random choice after a character is alive for X weeks would be more entertaining than 'go camp the widget'.
    • Woah! Back up son.
      Have you seen the game they created? What other reasons to play THAT game exist?

      Furthermore, complaining that people play games to be bad-asses, is, for lack of a better word, stupid. They're games. It's OK to want your character to be a bad ass. The problem is in that game, that unless you're a Jedi you really don't feel like a bad ass. In other games, even though there's 1000's of other people just like you, you can feel like a bad ass.

      Of course people want to be Jedi's. In the S
      • Then answer this :

        If becoming a Jedi was easy to obtain, say 1 month work for a non-hardcore gamer, then why the hell would you play a game where you're already the number one force (no pun intended) in the game?

        To reach the highest level? Big deal, you can do that in any MMORPG game. To get 'phat l3wt'? Its the Star Wars universe, the phatest l3wt is Jedi status. To master all the skills and proclaim yourself the biggest loser in the game? You already got Jedi status, maxing out the other skills can't be

        • Huh? How you got a mod point is beyond me. Regardless

          First, you have no idea how hard "maxing out other skills" is for a Jedi.

          Since they are a fully fledged class, it would be safer for you to assume they they are just as hard to max out as any other class. Currently they are much harder since they suffer from permadeath.

          Think of how your questions sounds if you replace Jedi with wizard?

          If becoming a wizard was easy to obtain, say 1 month work for a non-hardcore gamer, then why the hell would you

          • Re:In other words... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Monday January 26, 2004 @12:10AM (#8085636)
            Currently they are much harder since they suffer from permadeath.

            Thats why you build up another class before venturing into it. Thats like trying to learn how to drive a tank through a warzone before learning how to drive a car downtown.

            The use of the term 'wizard' is not a fair argument since 'wizard' is a general term and has already been done in games. How about the term 'Dark Knight'? (From FFXI)

            If becoming a Dark Knight was easy to obtain, say 1 month work for a non-hardcore gamer, then why the hell would you play a game where you're already the number one force (no pun intended) in the game?

            Guess what? This works. Just because its a game doesn't mean you're always gonna get things served to you on a silver plater. YOU may want to run around town lobbing heads off left and right with a double bladed lightsaber, but when you play with other people you play by the same set of rules and restrictions. The whole point of a RPG is to build up and develop a character, not to have a watered down game where your role is too similar to someone else because its too accessable.

            Their vision was that hardcore gamers, being the insanely clever people they are, would unlock the Jedi slot within the first 3 months of release. Considering the fact that there are people who have fully mastered over 3 different classes on one character in the game at this moment of posting, the idea of SOMEONE SOMEHOW stumbling upon the secret beforehand is not outrageous.

            The one class that is even remotely special, the one class every wants to play, is an accomplishment in itself just if you can actually even try to play that class.

            Isn't that the whole point? Why would you want to play as a class with unique skills, unique abilities, unique weapons, unique RULES; if so many other people could unlock it easily? Unless the majority of SWG players are looking for ego trips, if the Jedi slot was easy to open I'd rather play as a bounty hunter turned Jedi hunter. My character would certainly be more interesting than your "Good Jedi" "Bad Jedi" character.

            • No. That isn't the whole point.

              The whole point is that trying to make people live in the SW Universe without letting them be Jedi's is assinine. There's no point to it. The sole interesting aspect of that universe is the *force*.
              There are no wizards, no shamans, no palidans, no deathknights. Just mundane classes and then the *Jedi*.

              Furthermore, you've made another assumption. There is no reason to believe that all Jedi's are just all the same. And we never discussed the jedi in depth, so where you ge
            • Thats why you build up another class before venturing into it. Thats like trying to learn how to drive a tank through a warzone before learning how to drive a car downtown.

              FYI, you can't build up another class before getting Jedi. When you complete the tasks to become a Jedi, it unlocks an extra character slot in your account, in which you are permitted to create a completely new character, who is a Jedi. The character you used to unlock the slot is unaffected.

              Jedi characters do not have access to the

              • When you complete the tasks to become a Jedi, it unlocks an extra character slot in your account, in which you are permitted to create a completely new character, who is a Jedi. The character you used to unlock the slot is unaffected.

                So in otherwords, if you screw up your Jedi character because you showed off one too many times, you still have a badass built up character to fall back on. Again, considering the fact that you're the most unique character in the game I'd have to say 'Woo hoo! Bring it on punk

      • Of course people want to be Jedi's. In the SW Universe, it's basically the only thing *cool*.

        Stormtroopers, Bounty Hunters, Smugglers, The Emperors Royal Guards, Ewoks, Jawas, Sandpeople, etc all say hello. There are plenty of cool things to be or do in the star wars universe. The problem is this game didn't implement any of them correctly. Sure, you can become a cantina dancer, or build some cool weapons, but is that what was cool in SW? How much screen time did the cantina dancers actually get in

  • As a SWG newbie (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Trillian_1138 ( 221423 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMfridaythang.com> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:33AM (#8080066)
    As someone who's been playing SWG for less than a month, I'm very torn about this revelation. I'm still rather early along in any skill progressions, and haven't gotten anywhere near aquiring even a single holocron, so I was nowhere near being a Jedi. But because the game is still pretty new to me, I've been enjoying it a lot. Even without the prospect of becoming a Jedi any time in the near future, I've enjoyed running Rebel missions and exploring the Star Wars galaxy (excuse the pun).

    But I can see the grind of leveling getting old and the feeling that some gamers might have, of their 'right' to become Jedi in a Star Wars game. And as a gamer, I can relate. Part of the fun of almost every Star Wars game has been the excitement of being a Jedi. But as a Star Wars fan, I have to agree with other posts: the universe of the origonal trilogy was almost entirely devoid of Jedi. The Empire was hunting them down and killing them, one by one.

    And even outside the origonal trilogy, even at the HEIGHT of the Jedi Order, we're talking a couple thousand Jedi, tops. Even with tens of thousands. Even (and this is just silly) MILLIONS of Jedi. In a galaxy populated by billions and billions of sentient beings, that's less than one percent of the population.

    So I don't think it's unreasonable that it's hard as fuck to become a Jedi, and it's kind of a bitch to be one once you've achieved it. That's consistant with the rules the origonal trilogy laid out.

    I know some people may say, "Yes, but it's just a videogame." But it's a videogame set in a specific universe with specific rules that it has to follow to be able to truely claim it's in the Star Wars universe. And if it doesn't follow those, then I don't know why I would want to bother playing it. There are a number of other MMORPGs out there, and have their own cool sets of rules and characters and stories, without having to conform to an already existing background universe. But SWG has chosen to constrain itself within specific boundaries, and I expect it to do so.

    I guess I'll have to wait and see. I've been having a good time, but have also been annoyed with certain things. For example, the Rebel mission terminals are sitting out in the open. Even though certain systems may be doing a better job than others resisting the Empire, I think it's fair to assume a Rebel standing in the middle of a public square yelling "COME WORK FOR THE REBELLION!!!" would be killed rather quickly...

    And it's one thing to get a repeating mission to go deliver something or go kill a lair of some beast, but to get a mission to kill a specific person, and then to get it again? With the same mission description? So what did I do the first time?

    These aren't complaints on the game mechanics, just on the implimentation. And a sign that maybe the creators don't care about keeping true to the SW Trilogy as much as I'd like. I'm waiting to pass judgement on the revamped Jedi system, but will be extremely pissed off if there's a new Jedi Mission Terminal in every city and you can get force points by completting them.

    If I wanted to play a game where I could get magical powers simply by leveling, I'd have chosen something else. An inherent nature of the Jedi is that they're more powerful than pretty much anyone else. Maybe that's an impossible thing to achieve in an MMORPG, and I know there's no "accurate" way to portray The Force in a MMORPG, but I really hope they can do a little better than having mission terminals or some such shit.

    -Trillian

    • Re:As a SWG newbie (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Umgawa71 ( 739459 )
      I agree that -in terms of the Star Wars canon- there will inevitably be a disparately large number of Jedi across all of the servers. Unfortunately, it seems that most classes are effectively unnecessary in the game, in that a hundred percent of the players on a server could be Jedi and, as long as one of them had a clarinet, they wouldn't have to worry about much of anything. In my opinion, it's a lack of true interdependence that would allow something like that to happen. I'm not saying that it would happ

    • Re:As a SWG newbie (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lemental ( 719730 )
      I agree with tis to a point. I think the devs have hard such complaints about this too, as, they are introducing Imperial harrasers into the game wiht the next patch. So, being overtly(not Overt tagged) rebel in a public place wont be so safe anymore.

      I hope its more like some of the player created towns I see, where they are hardcore Imperial, or Rebel where there are turrets and guards on the perimeters of the town and covert detectors. Not knowing wether it is safe to travel into town makes it more excit
    • I've been the epitome of "casual gamer" since I started playing on Day Two. An hour here, half an hour there, maybe one or two days of solid eight hour playing.

      For those unfamiliar with the game, here's how it works: When you create your character, The Game selects five professions and doesn't tell you what they are. If you master those five, you can create a Jedi character. People got sick of wandering around in the dark guessing, so The Game introduced Holocrons, which will tip you off to one of your

  • lucasarts and sony really screwed up from the star (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ty ( 15982 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:34AM (#8080069)

    They really screwed up from the start. What kind of crackhead came up with a system where you spend hours upon hours building up a character that you will quit playing as soon as you unlock the force slot? If they want to make players happy AND make them stick around for a long time, they should make the Jedi class available to everyone from the start. BUT, make it really hard - through both time involvment AND ability/knowledge, to be a good jedi. That way every weenie who wants to be a jedi gets their wish, but only the ones who take time to develop their character actually get to be the kind of jedi that we saw in the movies.

    • I kind of agree that if some people want to be a jedi, they can.....but that they'll completely suck until they put MAJOR effort into it, above and beyond other characters.

      However, I do understand why they came up with the system they did. Because it takes FOREVER to build up the character to make the jedi (subscription $$$) and then even more time to build up the actual jedi (more subscription $$$). This is Verant we're talking about, thats the only reason behind it.

  • Classic SOE (Score:4, Insightful)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @08:59AM (#8080664) Homepage

    This is classic SOE management. They will release some goal to the playerbase that is extremely hard to reach. A small portion of the playerbase will work extremely hard, and reach that goal.

    The process of working so hard, makes the goal have a high social value. People are impressed, amazed, they want to reach that goal too.

    Enter round two, the difficulty of reaching the goal is significantly downgraded. Now a large portion of the paying game playerbase, who were unable to reach that goal before, can go for this highly coveted goal.

    Round three, they make it even easier.

    It's all about making players want something bad, and eventually making sure all (or most) players can get it. It's a good way to ensure your $9.89/month keeps coming in.

    Note, they've just announced this. It's not live yet. But I bet a bunch of people who are bored with SWG, who might cancel their accounts, will stick around now because now they can hope they'll become jedi.

    • Re:Classic SOE (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 )
      It's also a good way to make sure the playerbase doesn't get bored with a game still in active development (which nearly all MMORGPs are for most of their existence).

      I play one called Ashen Empires (Used to be Dransik). About a year and a half ago, they made a major graphical overhaul (from highly dated 16x16 256-color tile sprites to a full isometric system).

      When they launched the new version, they didn't include any of the high-end equipment that had been in the old version (partly because they seriousl
    • I think if you replace "difficult" with "Time-consuming" you hit the nail on the head for SOE. The rewards in their games don't go to the most skilled, but rather those that spend the most time seeking them. Which certainly makes sense for their business model.
  • Something as core as how the Jedi system works being revamped tells me once again that SOE have no clue when it comes to effective game design and making sure they get it right first time. It's one of the reasons I stopped playing Everquest, and is a big factor in me not playing any more of their games.
  • Seeing as they gave out holocrons to everyone for Christmas, I hope the changes in the whole jedi mess won't ingore that. Grinding though professions that the holocrons tell you does indeed suck, but if they do away with the holocron having something to do with the "jedi path" it kind of sucks for the people who couldnt get one until they gave them out for presents (most people for 2 in fact). Whatever the case, I do agree that grinding is probably the only way to make the game hard enough to accout for the
  • increasing my lightsaber collection!
  • As mentioned, anyone who knows Sony Online Entertainment shouldn't act surprised. You don't pay Sony a monthly charge to play their games, you pay them to playtest them.

    Look at PlanetSide, they post-beta they continued to "tweak" the gameplay over and over agin, nerfing things, adding more CTF type rules, etc. etc.

    Patches and additions are one thing, or even completely unforeseen exploits to the gameplay one could see as necessary changes - but to continually rewrite the core gameplay (and let's face - b
  • I think this move has probably much less to do with the community and more to do with money. A lot of people have stopped paying there subscriptions altogether, especially since Knightsof the Old Republic for the PC was released...
    • No way, they have a strong player base, they even reactivated cancelled accounts and had free account givaways to friends so that they could rub in all the fun of the game in those people's faces.
      • You cannot have the words "strong player base" and "reactivated cancelled account and had a free accout giveaway to friends...." in the same sentence. There most likely were a TON of cancellations leading prior to when vehicles and mounts were put in, and not enough of the cancelled ones came back after they put them in.
      • You cannot have the words "stong player base" and "reactivated cancelled accounts and had free account givaways to friends.." in the same sentence. There most likely were a TON of cancellations prior to the vehicles and mounts coming out. I doubt a lot of those people came back when they put them in. They reactivated cancelled accounts because there numbers weren't doing what they hoped (and remember that now all those "reactivated" accounts can show as "active" on the company books for investers. Of the

  • A Simple Solution... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cliff ( 4114 ) * on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:53PM (#8082794) Homepage Journal
    While I agree that being a Jedi should be unreachable to all but the most dedicated of players, I can't see why the game designers can't implement something easy to limit the number of "in-game Jedi" without destroying gameplay and player enjoyment.

    Allow me to propose an idea: Have an in-game Jedi limit comprised of a hard and a soft threshhold. Both thressholds are based on a small percentage of the number of accounts in the system (note, this is accounts, not players). Once the soft threshhold is reached, the game becomes slightly more difficult for all Jedi in the game (for example: mobs will target Jedi characters more than regulars with a greater chance to hit and greater damage as well). As Jedi attrition increases the in-game number may drop below the soft threshhold and the game is as normal. Of course, this assumes permadeath for force-sensitive characters -- which I think is fair. If you don't want permadeath, don't play a Jedi. Obviously, if the hard threshhold is reached, no more force-sensitive characters will be allowed.

    With this scheme, it would seem that a soft-threshhold of 0.25-0.6% and a hard-threshhold of 1-1.5% would be along the lines of what was seen in the movies, and could be adjusted dynamically by the game developers, and could be server dependent.

    This seems to me to be a simple way to allow players to reach being a Jedi, give them challenges while being a Jedi and also allow for new players to become Jedi if they are willing to go through the trials and tribulations necessary to activate their Force-Sensitive character slot.

    Disclaimer: I have never played SWG, as I am waiting for SOE to finally deliver on the promises they have made from the beginning, however I have been following the game and am wondering why the game designers haven't thought about implementing such a system on top of hard-to-find Jedi-oriented quests. I agree that being a Jedi should be difficult to extremely hard, but establishing population limits on top of that seems to be a no-brainer.

    I can't preview this comment due to a bug in Slashdot, so I apologize in advance for any errors in formating/spelling/etc.
    • It's quite possible that the game designers have implemented some of the suggestions above, and if they have, great!

      However it seems to me that much of SWG is being constantly revamped. One of the first things they should have done was handle the intricacies of being a Jedi, and instead it seems like this character class was added as an after-thought to satisfy the audience.

      Having not played the game, yet -- I'm still reserving judgement. I just hope that once the revamping of the class has been finis
  • I'm actually glad to hear that the whole Jedi thing is going to be cleared up and revamped. A holocron told my brawler that he should become a master doctor. Imagine my shock and dismay! Seriously, though, I hold that they will maintain some kind a mystery to the process making it very hard for most, but occasionally easy for a select few newbs based some randomness coupled with in game actions.

    I played SWG a couple of months last summer, then quit after getting tired of Fed Ex runs that usually got me kil
  • This is a pretty big change to SWG, personally I would be pretty damn miffed if I had played SOEs little holocron collecting game and mastered and nuked multiple classes just to unlock a force sensitive slot, especially since how mind numbingly boring playing alot of these classes is.

    I feel for anyone that got there holocron and it said .. level a up a Chef, or ugh... Droid engineer.

  • I played the first month of SWG, which was fun but very time consuming. I left because of lack of direction twards the Jedi path, lack of content, and lack of PvP.

    Between the change in how to become a Jedi, and the vehicles, I might actually go back. If SOE is getting more customers, then they did the right thing.

    They should in some way compensate the people who are Jedi already though since they worked so hard. :/

  • My first said marksman. Since I was already a pistoleer, that wasn't a problem for me. My next said master droid engineer. Now that was a problem. I tried the crafting professions in the first couple weeks of the game. Fucking boring.

    I'm glad they're changing the system. I can continue to play however I want, and still have a chance to make a Jedi on my server someday.

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